Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 109178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
The room became icier than ever. Jasper went on about his way and placed a folder onto Ryder’s lap.
My heart is thumping in my body and I’m sore with rage.
Grandpa slowly stood from his desk, and with a wave of his hand, dismissed them all.
Lennox walked out of there feeling like he was being crushed under a million pounds. The weight of the world was on his shoulders, his blood burning as it flowed fast and free within his veins. When the cousins made it to the front lawn, they were told their weapons would be sent to their residences, just in case one of them got the grand idea to pop off before their departure.
Lennox noticed that no one opened their folder even while outside. This time, it wasn’t armored trucks but seven black limousines that pulled up. They were instructed which ones to get into, and with only a few parting words and waves, they went separate ways.
Lennox was quiet all the way home. He didn’t touch the champagne in the pail, nor the food. He simply sat there, with that unopened envelope beside him. Plotting his revenge…
CHAPTER TWO
A Trip Down Memory Lane
Mom was a great distance away, but I saw her clearly. She’d been reaching out to me, her hand stretching in my direction. She was about to speak, but the words died on her tongue. A deep black hole appeared where she stood and swallowed her. She was gone as quickly as she’d appeared standing there. If I’d blinked, I’d have missed the entire spectacle.
A fear like I’d never known wrapped itself around me and squeezed me like a serpent does its prey. I didn’t go to try and save her. I was a child, frozen in fear, unable to move forward or take a step back. My heart banged inside of me—a severe flutter of pumping vessels and clasping muscles—and a cold sweat coated me from my scalp down to my toes. Liquid warmth trickled down my face, and my father’s muffled screams echoed in the distance. His shrieks were bouncing off the walls, carrying like disembodied wails.
‘Mommy! Daddy!’ I called out, but no one answered. I was all alone. The odor of something sickeningly sweet filled the air. Like dead flowers.
Suddenly, it was quiet. Too quiet. The rhythmic clomping of hooves against the ground could be heard in the empty space, breaking the calm like shattered glass smashing against concrete. It sounded like a horse.
Out of the hole that swallowed Mom up burst a gigantic muddy brown bull with twisted red horns. Huge as an elephant, he was charging at me, gaining momentum. I was still frozen, as if a heavy weight were pushing me down, keeping me in place for the pending painful death. As the beast drew closer, I realized the reddish color on the horns was wet, dripping blood. Shreds of fabric clung to the jagged pointy tips of the gnarled horns. The orange-eyed beast snarled and gained traction. Moments later, I was screaming, too. Mom held me, rocking me against her bosom. She kissed the top of my head and said, “Lenny, baby, it was just a bad dream…’
Children are afraid of the dark-eyed ghosts hiding in the closet, the smelly monsters under the bed, and the creepy shadow thing that shows up in the corner of the room in the middle of the night. So was I, but then I grew up. Something within me no longer allowed fear to be either companion or adversary. It was nothing to me, just another crack in the sidewalk. Another cloud in the sky. Another blade of grass in the lawn. I looked the ghost, monster and shadow thing in the eye, and told it, “No. I’m not scared of you.” He promised me that next time I would be, and there’d be no one to wake me from the bad dream, for it would be my reality…
Yuna’s, ‘Strawberry Letter 23’ was playing in Club Obsidian in Houston, Texas. After fixing the collar of his leather jacket, Lennox snatched a driver’s license out of a young woman’s hand. He peered at it, then at her. Without a word, he handed it back to her, took her thirty-dollar club entry fee, and did the same thing with the next person in the long line.
It was a rainy Saturday night. Just a miserable drizzle, but enough to make the streets slick and the air smell earthy. Lennox finished his stint by the front door as the clock struck midnight, changing positions with Todd, another bouncer in the club. They slapped hands as they passed one another in a thick crowd of hot, sweaty bodies. Reaching inside his dark brown leather jacket trimmed with white fur around the hood, he pulled out a pouch filled with five, ten, and twenty-dollar bills. Money from patrons who’d shown up for an evening of loud music, socializing, drinking, and possibly getting laid.